The right front room is extremely formal, with flat pilasters mirroring the rounded half columns in
the front left room. The built-in bookcase may identify the
room as the library. Henry Lansing's will explicitly mentions his library at Woodlawn.
History of Ontario County
NY, Conover & Aldrich, pub 1893, pg 491 - 493
Continued from
Mr. Lansing was essentially. a domestic man, he was fond of his home and devoted to his family. He was ever led to seek the highest happiness in his own domestic circle and possessed in a high degree those social qualities which belong to the refined and cultured gentleman. In a certain sense Mr. Lansing was the fruit of hereditary culture his father and grandfather on the paternal and materna1 side were bon vivants and connoisseurs. He prided himself upon his accurate judgment and discrimination in the choice of and selection of fine wines, and was an epicure in the best sense of the word, a lover of life's good things.
In one particular, in which business men are too generally negligent, Mr. Lansing excelled; he had cultivated the art of letter writing until his epistolary style became of rare excellence. He could express himself in the readiest and neatest way with great apparent ease, his letters were bubbling over in sentiment, expressed with great felicity and beauty, as all who ever received them will bear testimony.
Mr. Lansing was extremely fond of the sylvan sports, was an exceedingly good shot and an expert fisherman. In the years gone by, in order to indulge in the latter sport, he was compelled to make his own flies, and it was that accomplished gentleman and skillful sportsman, Alexander Jeffrey of Lexington, Ky., but who at that time lived in Canadaigua, who taught him how to make and use them, and it was this same gentleman who taught Seth Green, of Rochester, N.Y., who became the State's most expert fisherman, all he knew about angling.
Mr. Lansing was a most delightful companion and enjoyed good company, but it had to be the best in order to afford him any pleasure. He was extremely fond of poetry and had no end of quotations upon his tongue's end, and possessed the unusual faculty of being able to repeat from memory whole pieces, no matter how long they were, provided they awakened a responsive chord.
Mr. Lansing, coming as he did from a military family, very naturally inherited military tastes, and
shortly after the outbreak of the Civil war was appointed by the governor of New York chairman
of the Senatorial Committee of his Senatorial District, which was composed of the following
very prominent citizens of Buffalo:
Nathan K. Hall, Stephen G. Austin, Jacob Beyer,
John Ganson, Philip Dorsheimer, and Alexander W. Harvey. At this time Mr. Lansing was
brigadier-general of one of the brigades attached to the 8th Division of the State militia.
Mr. Lansing served faithfully upon this committee and through its efforts Colonel Chapin's regiment,
the One Hundred and Sixteenth New York Volunteers, and McMahon's Irish regiment,
the Corcoran Guards, were organized, recruited and sent to the front, where they did most
excellent service.
Mr. Lansing departed this life, after a tedious illness
which he bore with great fortitude, at Canandaigua, on the morning
of the 30th of September, 1889, and left him surviving a widow and
two sons, Livingston and Watts Sherman Lansing. He was buried at Forestlawn Cemetery, Buffalo, NY.
Continue reading